Lee Child - Without Fail

“Excellent,” Neagley called back. “I can almost see Colorado.”

“Shout when you spot something.”

“You too.”

The clock ticked thunk, thunk, thunk , once a second. The sound was loud and precise and tireless. He glanced back at the mechanism and wondered whether it would drive him crazy before it sent him to sleep. He heard expensive alloy touching wood ten feet behind him as Neagley put her submachine gun down. He laid his M16 on the boards next to his knees. Squirmed around until he was as comfortable as he was going to get. Then he settled in to watch and wait.

The air was cold and seventy feet above ground the breeze was a wind. It came in through the louvers and scoured his eyes and made them water. They had been there two hours, and nothing had happened. They had seen nothing and heard nothing except the clock. They had learned its sound. Each thunk was made up of a bundle of separate metallic frequencies, starting low down with the muted bass ring of the bigger gears, ranging upward to the tiny treble click of the escapement lever, and finishing with a faint time-delayed ding resonating off the smallest bell. It was the sound of madness.

“I got something,” Neagley called. “SUV, I think, coming in from the south.”

He took a quick look north and got up off his knees. He was stiff and cold and very uncomfortable. He picked up the bird-watcher’s scope.

“Catch,” he called.

He tossed it in an upward loop over the clock shaft. Neagley twisted and caught it one-handed and turned back to the louver panel. Put the scope to her eye.

“Might be a new model Chevy Tahoe,” she called. “Light gold metallic. Sun is on the windshield. No ID on the occupants.”

Reacher looked north again. The road was still empty. He could see ten miles. It would take ten minutes to cover ten miles even at a fast cruise. He stood up straight and stretched. Ducked under the clock shafts and crawled over next to Neagley. She moved to her right and he wiped his eyes and stared out south. There was a tiny gold speck on the road, all alone, maybe five miles away.

“Not exactly busy,” she said. “Is it?”

She passed him the scope. He refocused it and propped its weight on a louver and squinted through it. The telephoto compression held the truck motionless. It looked like it was bouncing and swaying on the road but making absolutely no forward progress at all. It looked dirty and travel-stained. It had a big chrome front fender all smeared with mud and salt. The windshield was streaked. The sun’s reflection made it impossible to see who was riding in it.

“Why is it still sunny?” he said. “I thought it was going to snow.”

“Look to the west,” Neagley said.

He put the scope down and turned and put the left side of his face tight against the louvers. Closed his right eye and looked out sideways with his left. The sky was split in two. In the west it was almost black with clouds. In the east it was pale blue and hazy. Giant multiple shafts of sunlight blazed down through mist where the two weather systems met.

“Unbelievable,” he said.

“Some kind of inversion,” Neagley said. “I hope it stays where it is or we’ll freeze our asses off up here.”

“It’s about fifty miles away.”

“And the wind generally blows in from the west.”

“Great.”

He picked up the scope again and checked on the golden truck. It was maybe a mile closer, bucking and swaying on the dirt. It must have been doing about sixty.

“What do you think?” Neagley said.

“Nice vehicle,” he said. “Awful color.”

He watched it come on another mile and then handed back the scope.

“I should check north,” he said.

He crawled under the clock shaft and made it back to his own louver. There was nothing happening in the north. The road was still empty. He reversed his previous maneuver and put his right cheek against the wood and closed his left eye with his hand and checked west again. The snow clouds were clamped down on the mountains. It was like night and day, with an abrupt transition where the foothills started.

“It’s a Chevy Tahoe for sure,” Neagley called. “It’s slowing down.”

“See the plate?”

“Not yet. It’s about a mile out now, slowing.”

“See who’s in it?”

“I’ve got sun and tinted glass. No ID. Half a mile out now.”

Reacher glanced north. No traffic.

“Nevada plates, I think,” Neagley called. “Can’t read them. They’re all covered in mud. It’s right on the edge of town. It’s going real slow now. Looks like a reconnaissance cruise. It’s not stopping. Still no ID on the occupants. It’s getting real close now. I’m looking right down at the roof. Dark tint on the rear side glass. I’m going to lose them any second. It’s right underneath us now.”

Reacher stood up tight against the wall and peered down at the best angle he could get. The way the louvers were set in the frame gave him a blind spot maybe forty feet deep.

“Where is it now?” he called.

“Don’t know.”

He heard the sound of an engine over the moan of the wind. A big V-8, turning slowly. He stared down and a metallic gold hood slid into view. Then a roof. Then a rear window. The truck passed all the way underneath him and rolled through the town and crossed the bridge at maybe twenty miles an hour. It stayed slow for a hundred more yards. Then it accelerated. It picked up speed fast.

“Scope,” he called.

Neagley tossed it back to him and he rested it on a louver and watched the truck drive away to the north. The rear window was tinted black and there was an arc where the wiper had cleared the salt spray. The rear bumper was chrome. He could see raised lettering that read Chevrolet Tahoe . The rear plate was indecipherable. It was caked with road salt. He could see hand marks where the tailgate had been raised and lowered. It looked like a truck that had done some serious mileage in the last day or two.

“It’s heading out,” he called.

He watched it in the scope all the way. It bounced and swayed and grew smaller and smaller. It took ten whole minutes to drive all the way out of his field of vision. It rose up over the last hump in the road and then disappeared with a last flash of sun on gold paint.

“Anything more?” he called.

“Clear to the south,” Neagley called back.

“I’m going down for the map. You can watch both directions while I’m gone. Do some limbo dancing under this damn clock thing.”

He crawled to the trapdoor and got his feet on the ladder. Went down, stiff and sore and cold. He made it to the ledge and down the winding staircase. Out of the tower and out of the church into the weak midday sun. He limped across the graveyard toward the car. Saw Froelich’s father standing right next to it, looking at it like it might answer a question. The old guy saw his approach reflected in the window glass and spun around to face him.

“Mr. Stuyvesant is on the phone for you,” he said. “From the Secret Service office in Washington D.C.”

“Now?”

“He’s been holding twenty minutes. I’ve been trying to find you.”

“Where’s the phone?”

“At the house.”

The Froelich house was one of the white buildings on the short southeastern leg of the K. The old guy led the way with his long loping stride. Reacher had to hurry to keep up with him. The house had a front garden with a white picket fence. It was full of herbs and cottage plants that had died back from the cold. Inside it was dim and fragrant. There were wide dark boards on the floors. Rag rugs here and there. The old guy led the way into a front parlor. There was an antique table under the window with a telephone and a photograph on it. The telephone was an old model with a heavy receiver and a plaited cord insulated with brown fabric. The photograph was of Froelich herself, aged about eighteen. Her hair was a little longer than she had kept it, and a little lighter. Her face was open and innocent, and her smile was sweet. Her eyes were dark blue, alive with hopes for the future.